celebrating the arts

January 5, 2006

over my christmas break, i've had the opportunity to see the power of the arts at work. my last day of school was december 16th. i went to portico that night to check out their christmas musical called mrs. scrooge. mrs. scrooge was a homegrown production. the script was written by a member of their church and the music, for the most part, was original. i was blown away by the quality of it. the kind of coordination, planning, time and dedication required to pull off something like that was completely mind-boggling. there must have been at least 100 volunteers to pull that night off. there were musicians, lighting crews, video crews, a/v crews, actors, singers, script writers, music writers, set designers, graphic designers, producers, directors and choreographers for the dance numbers—they truly used the arts to its full potential. what was also so awesome about their production was how it incorporated a wide variety of ages. kids, teens, young adults and adults all took part in putting the service together. what incredible unity that shows! plus, the mix of cultures that took part in it too (i love that about the arts. it knows no bounds. it is not limited by age, gender or culture).

i was so inspired that night. i decided that my creative team needed to go see this, so come sunday, i literally forced all four of them to go. i never thought it possible to see that kind of production in my own city. i thought it was something for mega churches like willowcreek, with the financial resources and manpower to pull it off. portico really isn't even all that big. judging by their sanctuary size, i'd say they could fit between 600-800 people in there. who would have thought that a church like that could put together something so powerful! flourishing arts ministry IS possible in this city.

december 23rd was christmas dinner at my church. my creative team has been planning this service since may/june. our theme for the night was acceptance. we felt that this was a topic that everyone faces, especially for chinese people. we decided that our target age group was high-school and college students and that we wanted to reach the unchurched. we looked at the topic of acceptance from three ways. people accepting us, ourselves accepting us, and finally God accepting us. we moved through the evening in that exact order.

before the night began, we set up an art gallery featuring the different works of our church members. we had paintings, photography, graphic designs, installations, poetry, and motion graphics. i was impressed by the quality and breadth of the different arts represented in our gallery. i'm positive that there are more artists in my church.

during dinner, we had a girl paint a self-portrait. during the night, she would come up and touch up her portrait. the point of this was to show how we are not satisfied with who we are. that we try to cover up and paint ourselves to be a certain way. we did not use a canvas for the painting. it was a mirror. the metaphor was that underneath all the paint, is our true selves—the person God created us to be.

after dinner, we started off with a video. the point of the video was to hint at our desire for people to accept us. it depicted two people going through a very normal day. but at key points, we'd throw in a line or two to get people thinking. for example, one scene had a girl trying on different outfits. we wrote "dressing to impress" for that. the video ends with the two characters returning home through their front doors. immediately following that was our duologue (monologue with two people). we had two doors set up on stage that the actors came out of (in order to tie the video to it). the script was basically about our desire for people to accept us. we have each actor talking out loud about the reasons why they do what they do. they ask rhetorical questions throughout. following this, we had a girl give a testimony. she really helped the transition into ourselves accepting us. she talked about wanting to please other people and how that eventually ended up affecting her own self acceptance. it was very powerful. she ended off saying "this is my story, what's yours?" we gave people a brief moment of silence, to let them think about their own lives. the words "what's yours?" were projected on the screen. after that, a spoken word piece was given. this spoken word was written in conjunction with the girl who gave her testimony, so the fit was amazing. the point of the spoken word piece was to help people internalize this theme of acceptance. following this, was the song "beautiful" by bethany dillon, performed by a singer and some musicians. a sermon was given after this to bring in how God accepts us the way we are. our response took two stages. the first, was the song "anyway" by nichole nordeman. this song really helped tie all the different elements of the night. while this song was played, we had the painter come back up and scrape off the paint from the mirror (showing our true selfs, not the created person we painted on it). we also had the girl who gave her testimony come and scrape the paint off with her. following the song, we had a time for corporate response. we had purchased little mirrors and placed them in each of the dinner tables. each mirror was painted black and had a magnet on the back of it. if the person so chose, they were to scrape the black paint off the mirror and then proceed to the front to place the mirror on an iron cross we had set up at the front.

i was NOT prepared for what would happen at the response time. streams of people got up and went to the front to place their mirrors on the cross. it was non-stop for a good while. i stood there in awe of how God moved that night. i was so inspired. if only we had more God moments like this each sunday. if only we had more time to craft more services. possibilities floated around in my head. the reason why we use the arts, is to more effectively communicate a message. we use the arts to weave a message together that is not only understood in the mind, but also experienced in the heart and soul. i think the response would have been very different if we had just planned a "typical" church service, music + a message. we had about 185 people come that night. of those, 53 people responded. that's more than 1/4 of the people that came up! and remember, this was with unchurched people too. i'm well aware that we had at least one person accept Christ that night.

we had a guestbook in our art gallery. one of our visitors wrote how she really related to what was portrayed during our night. when i asked people what they thought of the night, they were really impressed by how unified the message was delivered. they were impressed by how everything was so woven together. i must say, i am so proud of my creative team for putting this together. one of the actresses was really blown away by the night. she said something like how she never thought it possible to see the arts used like that in a chinese church. i was like YES, it is possible! this CAN be done in OUR church. i really believe God is stirring something special in my church. for whatever reason, we seem to have a lot of artists. and the beautiful part of it, is that our church celebrates using the arts in all our services (though not every week).

december 24th, i went to UAC to see their production of "word on the street" (written by willowcreek). i was in high hopes for it because i knew how complicated the production was. i also knew how gifted the people at UAC were, so i knew they'd be able to pull it off. i was so inspired by what i saw. i couldn't believe how well they put the production together, from the lighting, to the set design, to the music, to the singers and actors. and rather than simply following the script, they also added their own uniqueness to it. they added in some musical numbers and changed some of the lines. they also designed an amazing set. it was just like what willow had. to understand the complexity of it, you really need to see the set for yourself (check out http://www.willowcreek.com/servicebuilder/seasonal_events/WordontheStreet.asp).

three examples of the power of the arts in one week. this is what i'd give my life for. i want to see the power of arts unleashed in the local church. i want to see people crafting services with excellence. i want to see lives changed, challenged and transformed on a weekly basis. i want to see people excited to go to church again. i want to see more God moments in our churches.

"unless and until all artists in the church get into the game, the church will never reach its redemptive potential” - nancy beach, an hour on sunday, pg. 10

Posted by Leo Chan at January 5, 2006 11:53 PM